NYCJUG/2010-01-12

dictionary, instant messaging, code collaboration, mathematical proofs by computer

Location::BEST in Hoboken, NJ

Meeting Summary

We talked about better ways to present and explain J to people new to the language, looking at a example from Perl.

Agenda for NYCJUG of 20100112

             Meeting Agenda for NYCJUG 20100112
             -----------------------------------

1. Beginner's regatta: explaining J idioms - see "Perl Idioms Explained-
key-map.doc".


2. Show-and-tell:
    Thomas - a very basic instant messenger that allows people to share J code.

    Devon - updating an old favorite: see "DirectoryParsing.odt".


3. Advanced topics: pointing out the limitations of pseudo-code - see
"NebulousPlay.odt" - and how easy it is to play around in J.


4. Learning and teaching J: motivating new users and removing barriers to
early accomplishment: see "How To Introduce J.odt".

Also, see "APL2010BerlinLPA-CallForPapers.odt".

Proceedings

Beginner's regatta

We looked at this Perl explanation of a mapping idiom (found http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=280658.)

Show-and-tell

Thomas demonstrated a basic "instant messaging" system he put together with the idea of allowing people to collaborate on J code. It treats a line prefixed by a special sequence (like "J.") to be executed on the messaging client machine. There is work to be done on this, in particular with regard to maintaining a common code archive but it was an impressive little proof-of-concept.

Somehow we got to talking about how character-oriented input from the early days of programming offered a feeling of control whereby your code could respond to each key a user presses. Thomas volunteered that this could be done quite easily in J and proceeded to put together a short piece of "wd" code to demonstrate this. To show that it was reacting to each keypress, he put in a routine to convert each vowel to upper-case while displaying all other characters as they were entered.

Advanced topics

Learning and teaching J

Scan of Meeting Notes

CategoryWorkInProgress CategoryWorkInProgress